In this chaotic world, one can always seek comfort in the warmth of whimsy. Innocent icons are fondly looked upon as one of the few things incorruptible. The problem is that these works are made by people. People are rarely incorruptible. The following 10 people show how artists in fields as charming as poetry or as playful as toys have hid behind their public reputation to be less than scrupulous.

Top 10 Gruesome Fairy Tale Origins

10 Hans Christian Andersen

Hans Christian Andersen wrote down two things, children stories and records of every time he masturbated. Thankfully, the two never overlapped. In his professional life, the man behind fairytales like “The Little Mermaid” and “The Snow Queen” remained pure. Outside of that, he challenged to contain his sexual urges. To control his desires, he masturbated with such regularity that he developed “penis sores.” Debauched accounts of every instance of onanism filled his diaries.

Outside of chronic masturbation, his life was remarkably chaste. Like his titular creation, Andersen considered himself an ugly duckling. Terribly afraid of sex, he could only fantasize about unreciprocated crushes on both men and women. He likely died a virgin. The closest he came to having sex was when he hired prostitutes. Even that transaction was still chaste. They were only employed to talk to him. When the conversation ended, he excused himself to, as Elsa would say, “let it go”.

9 Xavier Roberts

Xavier Roberts’ signature is more famous than the name it stands for. His cursive autograph rests on the foot of every Cabbage Patch Kid. In the 1980’s, parents rioted to get the latest must-have Christmas gift. Off the success of the unrivaled phenomenon, Roberts racked in a fortune. The women who conceived the idea made nothing.

Outside of tales of following an enchanted BunnyBee to a vegetable patch, Roberts was never candid about the dolls’ origin. He consistently opined that the toys were tokens in honor of the quilted dolls his mother used. This story was a concocted public relations stunt. The truth is simpler. He bought one of Martha Nelson Thomas’ Doll Babies at a craft show.

Many traits later found in Cabbage Patch Kids originated in Doll Babies, like the shriveled infant face or accompanying adoption papers and information sheets listing their interests. Thomas treated her dolls as people with individual personalities. They could not be besmirched with any insignia, even a copyright symbol. Roberts had no similar qualm.

Thomas eventually sued Roberts for intellectual property theft. Thomas cared little about the undisclosed amount of money earned in the settlement. She just wanted Roberts to admit that she was the toy’s true creator. Begrudgingly, he confessed the truth.

8 Lisa Frank

It was almost too sweet. Saccharine scenes of unicorns jumping over rainbows to share ice cream cones with dolphins were bound to hide something nefarious. Lisa Frank, the company, is beloved. Lisa Frank, the person, is hated.

In the height of the sticker fad, the need to maintain production fostered a toxic corporate climate. Former employees compared the working conditions to everything from an “abusive alcoholic home” to the “Rainbow Gulag” to, bluntly, “the world’s shi**iest employer.” Lisa Frank heavily restricted her employees’ rights. Visitors were forbidden from the office. Banned from speaking to their coworkers, the staff worked in complete silence. Frank secretly recorded employees’ calls to make sure they followed her demands.

Disobedient employees were verbally abused by Frank’s husband and CEO James Green. In cocaine rattled tirades, Green belittled the staff. When name calling was not enough, Green resorted to throwing chairs, padlocking employees in their office, or threatening their lives. With the smallest infraction to justify firing, Green withheld worker’s severance packages and unemployment benefits. A collective action eventually forced them to maintain this minimal right. Free from their contracts, the workforce left en masse. They deserved the break.

7 Robert Frost

Robert Frost’s poems are as modest as the winter trees he elegizes. Frost was not as pristine as fallen snow. Two roads diverged in the woods. He took the one less traveled, the road of being a vindictive jerk.

Fellow poets bore the brunt of Frost’s jealousy. Simultaneously assured that no rival could compare to his mastery and fearful of challengers, he heckled burgeoning poets during their readings. To distract one of Archibald MacLeish’s recitation, Frost lit a small fire in the back. When confronting the would-be arsonist, Bernard DeVoto told Frost, “You’re a good poet, Robert, but you’re a bad man.” Frost did not really disprove DeVoto’s accurate summary, once he spread rumors that DeVoto was mentally challenged. After similar provocation from Truman Capote, Frost forced the New Yorker to fire the cub reporter Capote.

Frost’s propensity for grudges was equally disastrous in his personal life. His own marriage was jeopardized after falsely accusing his wife of having an affair. One night he woke his children to warn them he was about to kill him and their mother. Luckily, he did not follow through on his threat.

6 Northern Calloway

On rare occasions, Sesame Street cannot chase the clouds away. In 1982, shopkeeper Mr. Hooper’s death darkened Jim Henson’s village. The episode is heralded for its deft handling of grief. The next shopkeeper gave the audience another reason to mourn.

In the show, Mr. Hooper’s store responsibilities were handed over to Northern Calloway’s David. As a beloved mainstay of the show, Calloway earned a lot of good will over his eighteen year tenure. In exchange, Sesame Street tolerated his escalating chaotic behavior.

In the early 1980’s, Calloway rampaged through the streets of Nashville. The pantsless entertainer bashed in car windows with an iron rod. In 1989, Calloway’s mental deterioration was evident. Executives fired him after biting music director Danny Epstein’s ear. The final straw was harassing teenage actress Alison Bartlett. As a result, he was sent to Stony Lodge Psychiatric Hospital. While resisting his caretakers’ restraints, Calloway had a seizure. The subsequent cardiac arrest killed the 41-year-old actor.

5 Thomas Kinkade

Thomas Kinkade, “The Painter of Light” desired to shine “God’s light” in a secular artworld. Critics dismissed his kitschy pastoral landscapes as filled with more trees than artistic merit. The American public disagreed. Millions of knick-knacks sported Kinkade’s designs. The popularity financed a destructive drinking career. That light casts a dark shadow.

Kinkade was a fraud that inflated his sales figures to trick gallery owners to invest with him. Operators displayed Kinkade’s work falsely believing their value was secure. It was not. In early 2002, his stock value fell from $25 to $3 dollars. While the investors went bankrupt, Kinkade’s personal wealth was unaffected.

The millions in royalties fueled drunken escapades. Disastrous incidents include storming the stage of a Siegfried & Roy performance or urinating on a Winnie the Pooh statute at Disneyland. Worst of all, multiple female fans accused him of groping them without their consent. When he drank himself into a temporary coma, his family held an intervention about his alcoholism. Doctors feared that if he did not control his drinking, he would die. After mixing valium with liquor, that is exactly what happened. He was 54.

4 Bing Crosby

Few names more evoke the wistful yearning of the Christmas carol than Bing Crosby. Immortal standards like “White Christmas,” “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” or the ill-conceived duet with David Bowie, “The Little Drummer Boy” are forever associated with the crooner. His kids likely wished he did not make it home for the holidays.

Worried his wealth would spoil his sons, Bing imposed a strict regimen of acceptable behavior. The corporal punishment was borderline torturous. Each week, Bing placed his sons on a scale. If their weight was above their father’s arbitrary standard, Bing beat them with sticks until they bled. To stay in line with the dietary rules, son Philip occasionally forwent breakfast. One time, Phillip hid his eggs and bacon under a rug. Bing fished the meal off the floor and forced Phillip to eat it, “dirt, hairs, and all.” The boys were sometimes compelled to wear their dirty underwear around their faces until they went to bed in a practice so common it was nicknamed, “the Crosby lavalier.”

The humiliation wore down the family. Their days were not merry and bright. Unable to prevent the scolding, wife Dixie turned to alcoholism. All four sons eventually did as well. One son regularly checked himself into mental institutions for treatments. Another two faced their depression by killing themselves.

3 Marvin Glass

Marvin Glass created three main products: Mouse Trap, a toy where convoluted contraptions ensnare unwilling participants, Operation, a game focused on human anatomy, and Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots, a toy built around confrontation. One could say a lot about Glass, but they cannot deny the man put his life into his work.

Obsessive over his board game empire, Glass decked his house with the latest tools in home security. Windows were bolted and triple locked. Cameras recorded anyone who approached his home on close circuit television. Armed guards were stationed around the clock. Paranoia turned him into a reclusive shut-in.

The delusion did not impede his social life. Modeled after friend Hugh Hefner’s notorious Playboy Mansion, his manor constantly hosted orgies. Not all of the encounters were consensual. Glass had a pattern of “manipulative and predatory” behavior. He often cajoled woman to have sex with him by claiming it was the only way to prevent him from committing suicide. It probably did, temporarily, help relieve his depression. Glass brought joy to millions. To many, including himself, he did not.

2 Dr. Seuss

You’re a mean one Mr. Geisel. Theodore Geisel, better known under his pseudonym Dr. Seuss, entertained generations of children with whimsical tales. The nonsensical rhymes were a collaborative effort between him and his wife, Helen Palmer Geisel. Curiously, Theodore co-wrote these charming stories without particularly caring for his market demographic. Helen was consumed with wanting kids.

A lifelong victim of Guillain-Barre syndrome, an autoimmune disorder that causes paralysis and tingling, Helen thought she could finally find comfort as a mother. At 33, Helen was hospitalized with abdominal pains. The doctors treated her by removing her ovaries. The operation ensured she could never conceive her own children.

Infertility threw Helen into a depression. The emotional turmoil exacerbated her already debilitating condition. She then learned an even worst heartbreak. Unable to keep his wocket in his pocket, Theodore cheated on Helen after 41 years of marriage with the married Audrey Diamond. In 1967, Helen purposely overdosed on nearly 300 pills. Her suicide note blamed Theodore for the despair he put her through. He did not change his poor behavior towards women. A year after Helen’s death, Seuss married Audrey Diamond on the condition that she cut off contact to her then-husband and children.

1 Peter Robbins

The judge warned him to not be a “blockhead.” Peter Robbins appreciated the nod to his earlier fame. He did not heed the advice. In the 1960’s, Robbins voiced the iconic Charlie Brown in the “Peanuts’” most celebrated productions. He played the titular role in holiday staples, A Charlie Brown Christmas and It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. When puberty hit, the acting roles vanished. He had little options left.

In 2013, Robbins’ girlfriend, Shawna Kern, dumped him. He felt betrayed after just paying for her to get breast implant surgery. In a fury, he abused both her and their dog, a move Snoopy would surely condemn. She fled for her safety.

Banned from contacting Kern, Robbins started stalking her. Kern’s phone rang for hours with Robbins threats on the other line. He grew obsessed with Lori Saltz, the plastic surgeon who performed the procedure that Robbins saw as the reason behind the breakup. When the police investigated the couple for domestic abuse, Robbins hired a hitman to try to murder the local sheriff. He was sentenced to one year in jail before the plan was acted upon. By 2015, he was back in courtroom for violating his probation. Due to increasing signs of bipolar disorder and paranoid schizophrenia, he was transferred to a psychiatric hospital instead. His luck with animated footballs was the first indication that he could never learn from his mistakes.

10 Family-Unfriendly Facts From The Life Of Dr. Seuss

About The Author: Nate Yungman was just having wholesome fun with this article. If you thought he rocked it, you can follow him on twitter @nateyungman. If you want to sock him, you can email any questions of comments to [email protected]

Roughhousing leads to tears, and let’s be honest, so do pranks. The internet and early-2000s television have given us the notion that pranks are lighthearted, always silly, and even when it backfires, hilarious.

The truth is that pranks are more like that April Fools’ episode of SpongeBob SquarePants where Squidward viciously pranks SpongeBob, dragging him by a rope around the Krusty Krab where he eventually lands inside a garbage can. Anyone who likes to be pranked only allows it to take their revenge, and oh, how do they love revenge.

Wow, turn down the drama, will you? Sometimes pranks are dark for other reasons outside of torture and vindictive natures. Sometimes the backstory is sad. You know, one of those “if only you knew what happened before this” sort of thing.

That said, here are ten wholesome pranks with a dark side.

Related: 10 April Fools’ Pranks That Completely Backfired

10 The Lame Christmas Present Prank

There’s a viral prank out there. It consists of gifting young children with completely underwhelming gifts: pickled beets, an avocado, some batteries…pretty much the complete opposite of what a child gets excited about for Christmas.

You’ve probably seen it on Jimmy Kimmel Live! already—they open the gift with anticipation and then are met with confusion as they handle the object. Most kids are pretty gracious, saying thank you and acting excited and grateful. Good for them! That’s the kind of wholesome content we want to see from toddlers and young people. But…then there are the entirely unhappy kids.

Though we appreciate the mild-mannered reactions, it’s the temper tantrums we watch the videos for. How bogus is it that a prank that showcases how well children can handle disappointment is really watched to scoff at how spoiled kids in the U.S. are?

9 “Boiling Points” Driving School

Boiling Points was an MTV gem. The show revolves around the premise that people are pranked with poor service, bad manners, or an all-around irritating situation to see how quickly they’ll snap. If they manage to keep their cool long enough, they win money.

In this episode of Boiling Points, a driving instructor, Mr. Merit, puts driving students in the worst lemon you’ve ever seen (the seatbelts are made from bungee cords and tape, or maybe a piece of rope?) and proceeds to be the worst driving instructor you’ve ever seen. One girl even says, “Wait, I don’t know how to drive this yet.” to which he responds, “Well, the only way to learn how to drive a car is what?” She timidly says, “To drive it?”

It’s a pretty hilarious episode, but, in retrospect, it is fairly dangerous. Prank aside, these kids are in a questionable situation, learning poor driving habits, and probably scared out of their minds. I mean, this car is trash. And Mr. Merit makes me entirely uncomfortable, especially when he mentions that the brakes don’t work too well.

8 A Prom Date

It’s prom night, and Sarah is taking her gym teacher, Christian Gray, as her date. Except not really, since it’s just a prank. Radio host Elvis Duran and his co-hosts regularly pull phone taps. Someone calls in and arranges for one of the hosts to call up a loved one or friend (in this case, Sarah is calling her dad) and pranks them with a situation they know would piss them off.

For this one, the prank plays upon an inappropriate relationship with a minor. The gym teacher calls Sarah’s father intending to speak to her. Instead, he talks to the dad and explains that he’s taking Sarah to the prom. The dad is understandably livid. Twenty-seven-year-old Christian tries to defend himself, saying that he didn’t ask her. She asked him.

To make matters worse, Sarah chimes in and starts saying how nice he is, that she’s been poking him on Facebook, really elevating the inappropriate nature of the relationship.

Of course, they all reveal that it’s a phone tap in the end. The father laughs it off, but boy, I’d still be angry as hell.

7 Post Malone Prank

Most over Ashton, it’s Post Malone’s time to prank. Post Malone “dresses up” as a record store sales associate and does what he does best: sells records, I guess. It’s a mildly successful prank. I mean, how can you not recognize him? No one else has those tattoos. But he does get some people going. He tries to sell one of his albums by saying that it sucks and wants to get rid of it, recommends artists way out of someone’s tastes, has someone read ridiculous lyrics, and explains that he wants to be an accountant.

So why did he do this? Is it because he’s one of the nicest celebrities you could meet nowadays? Kind of, yes.

Post Malone was raising money for Folds of Honor, which provides educational scholarships to the families of fallen and disabled veterans. The prank was cute and fun, but such a serious cause brings a somber overtone to the entire thing.

6 A Prank Not Worth Dying Over

People have been pranking each other since way back when, and there are so many tales of these early pranks going horribly wrong. On April Fool’s Day, 1896, a Tennessee man decided to prank his new bride. Unfortunately, it didn’t go as planned. He thought that maybe she would appreciate the joke since she knew he was a bit of a class clown and liked to play jokes on people.

Unfortunately, the costume he dressed up in was pretty scary. After knocking on the door disguised as a homeless man, he asked her to make him a meal. She fainted and was rushed to the hospital. And then she died. He scared her to death.

5 The Oldest Fart Joke

The earliest recorded prank is a fart joke. If that’s not wholesome, then I don’t know what is. (Double checks definition of wholesome.) Roman Emperor Elagabalus ruled from 218 to 222 and was a known tyrant. However, he was also a known partier and prankster. For instance, he placed leather pillows on seats during a dinner party, and when people sat down, it would leak air and make a fart noise. This was pretty funny to his dinner guests.

Still, this is all coming from the man who murdered tons of people (including his cousin), spent money on lavish décor instead of on improvements to Rome, and apparently sacrificed his children to the gods.

4 “The Office” Bully

If you love The Office (U.S. version), then you know that Jim’s pranks against Dwight are golden. Jim was successful about 99% of the time, despite Dwight’s undying uncertainty of the situation. And even though Dwight knew that Jim would prank him, he kept falling for it. Let’s list some of the more notable Jim pranks:

• “Bears eat beets, Battlestar Galactica.”
• Dwight from the future sends a message to himself via the fax machine. “Do not drink the coffee.”
• Tear away Velcro suit.
• The loud voice mock sales call with Bill Budlichter.

The list goes on.

Okay, so how is this hilarity dark? The fact that Jim endlessly and mercilessly pranks Dwight. These aren’t wholesome pranks, yet an entirely wholesome show disguises them as such. Yes, Dwight is insufferable, but what Jim does is straight-up bullying. I guess it’s only acceptable in fiction.

3 Sal Does Not Like Cats

Impractical Jokers cat member, I mean cast member Sal Volcano is terrified of cats. Yes, even those cute little meowing fluffy kittens. But, as per show rules, when you lose an episode, you must undergo extreme punishment. In this case, the guys prank Sal with his worst nightmare: they cover him in kittens.

So though Q, Murr, and Joe are laughing their butts off behind the scenes, and we’re crying with laughter over Sal’s reactions over the innocent cats, Sal is a bundle of nerves. It’s like watching funny torture, which I guess isn’t funny at all.

2 Pregnancy Payback

Let’s bring MTV back, shall we? In another prank show, Revenge Prank, two sisters get back at their mother for posting a viral, over-the-top video by pretending one of them is pregnant. As the sisters and their mother are in the ambulance, one on a gurney “screaming” in “pain,” the mother is not only confused, but her worry is borderline anger since no one is telling her what’s going on. A few minutes later, it’s revealed that she is “pregnant” but not with her current boyfriend’s baby. The medic explains that her water wouldn’t break at four months.

Enter Momma Bear. The mother starts to firmly advocate for her daughter as the ambulance stops at a red light. “Get a police escort. I want her there now!” Her demand that they hurry up and get her daughter to a hospital only escalates in temper. It is an incredible showcase of family sticking up for family, even though it’s a prank. Go, mom! You start to forget it’s a prank in the first place and start cheering her on.

It would be funnier if the mother didn’t get so worked up, though. As the host explains why her daughters pranked her, it all of a sudden sounds so stupid. Poor mom.

1 Racist Senior Prank

We may graduate high school, but that doesn’t mean we’re always smart. A group of Glenelg High School seniors geared up for a simple senior prank, as is custom, and decided to graffiti the sidewalks, parking lot, and other parts of the building. Now, this had the potential to be wholesome fun. But, as I said before, some educated people aren’t that smart.

Instead of graffitiing cartoons or “seniors 4ever,” they decided to go full-blown white supremacy Nazis. They graffitied the N-word, swastikas, homophobic comments, and other undesirable slurs and phrases. A senior prank turned into a hate crime.

The four students were caught, arrested, and probably won’t be too popular in college.